Italy: Hotel tells Israeli customers they're the reason Nazis are returning to Europe

Via Ynet News:

A Jewish couple that accidentally gave an Italian hotel a low rating received in response anti-Semitic mail, saying that “Jews are never satisfied” and that they should not complain if Nazis return to Europe.

Bella and Boris Nudelman, together with two other couples, stayed in the Hotel Ristorante Italia in the Certosa di Pavia, and had only positive feedback after their one-night stay.

“The hotel was really nice and we enjoyed it there. When we left, we received from the booking website “Booking.com” a request to rate our stay there. It was at the same time as we were driving and by accident, without paying attention, I gave the hotel five out of ten stars,” Bella said.

A short while later, the hotel responded with hateful outrage to the rating.

“You Jews are never satisfied! Don’t complain when Nazis and fascists return to Europe. There is a reason for it … You!” the abusive email written in English said. 

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Belgium: “Would you mind removing your kippa for security reasons?”, rabbi told in Brussels

Via The Jerusalem Post (Axel Benjamin):

“Would you mind removing your kippa for security reasons?” The one sentence that sums up the malaise at the heart of Europe.

“You have to hear this”, said our usually un-flappable and very level-headed chairman Rabbi Menachem Margolin. So, when he said that, we all knew something significant was about to be said. But even now, as I write this, it seems so ludicrous to repeat out loud, particularly considering the source it came from.

The more I think about it about it, the more it speaks volumes and underlines how deep the malaise currently affecting European political and cultural thought goes. You will have to wait a bit longer for the punchline, first let’s put it into context: At the end of last week, we at the European Jewish Association and our partners at Europe Israel Public Affairs, the European Jewish Community Centre and European Coalition for Israel twinned European Parliamentarians, EU Institution policy heads and Jerusalem’s brightest and best high-tech entrepreneurs and venture partners for the second of our annual High Tech conferences in the European Parliament. The conference was organized by the Jerusalem Development Authority and the Israeli Ministry of Jerusalem and Heritage. Oscar bit done, now the story. (…)

“Would you mind removing your kippa for security reasons?” asked the Belgian policeman to Margolin. Boom. Back to earth with a bump.

Welcome to Brussels in 2018. Where perceived security and provocation from the forces of law and order stems from the act of wearing a kippa, instead of those who find it an affront in the first place.

This logic implies that a girl could be asked to not wear a skirt because she might provoke a rapist, or that a priest should remove his collar in case someone from ISIS takes offence at the ‘infidel’. Is this really what passes as maintaining security in Brussels these days? 

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Italy: The Jewish Opera Italy Couldn’t Bear to Hear

Via Atlantic:

After the composer died in Turin in 1945, hiding in a fleabag hotel under a false name to avoid roundups, his music was forgotten. His family tried for years to get Italian opera houses interested in it, only to be met with suspicion and resistance. Producing Finzi’s music posthumously would have implied admitting and publicizing that it had once been banned because of the racial laws, a part of the past with which Italy still has not properly reckoned. So the Finzis did what European Jews sometimes do when they feel voiceless: They turned to the U.S.

(...)

Yet this is not just the story of a Jewish composer finally getting the recognition he deserves. It’s also the story of a country that still represses the memory of its racist past, a phenomenon that carries serious consequences for modern-day politics, especially at a time when the populist right wing is on the rise.

“When it comes down to the racial laws, Italy never fully reckoned with its responsibilities. Unlike what happened, for instance, in France [or Germany], no Italian head of State or government ever apologized for the persecution of Jews,” Guri Schwarz, a historian at the University of Genova, told me. Many Italians, he said, grew up with the distorted notion that the racial laws were not such a big deal, that Italy was “out of the shadow of the Shoah,” that the Holocaust was “a German thing.”

“It’s not that Italians didn’t learn about the persecution of Jews, but often they learned about it as if it where something that happened somewhere else,” said Schwarz. This lack of historic consciousness, he added, is the result of what he described as “the normalization of fascism,” a political process that began in the 1980s, when the Socialist party attempted an alliance with the post-fascist Movimento sociale, and continued with Silvio Berlusconi, who included self-described “former fascists” in his coalitions. “The message was, ‘We can include fascists [in mainstream politics], and we can do that because they weren’t really so bad.’”

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Europe: It’s no fun being a Rothschild in Europe these days

Via The Jerusalem Post:

Twenty years ago, few people in Europe thought of the Rothschilds as Jews. As far as the general public was concerned, they were French bankers and philanthropists. “Rothschild was a brand name,” Baroness Ariane de Rothschild told The Jerusalem Post this week.

The baroness – who heads the Edmond de Rothschild Caesarea Foundation and is a banking and finance expert in her own right – was in Israel for the inauguration of the Crusader Wall Promenade in Caesarea.

She was also receiving an Honorary Doctorate from the Haifa Technion, in recognition of her commitment to making higher education accessible to all young Israelis, especially those from minority groups – particularly their women – who for economic reasons seldom go beyond a Master’s in academia.

The baroness said that the Internet is now crawling with conspiracy theories and statements of outright hatred in connection with the Rothschilds. 

“Antisemitism in Europe is a big worry, and can be felt very strongly,” she said. “There’s a lot of pressure, and it’s a very big problem. The extreme Right is popping up everywhere.”

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Italy: 25% of Italians do not want Jews as family members

Via The Times of Israel:

Nearly a quarter of British respondents to a poll on attitudes to minorities in Western Europe said they would be unwilling to accept Jews as family members.

The Pew Research Center’s report titled “Being Christian in Western Europe” was published Wednesday and contains results from interviews with more than 24,000 randomly selected adults in 15 countries. In the United Kingdom, 23 percent of 1,841 respondents interviewed said “no” when asked “Would you be willing to accept Jews as members of your family?” It was the second-highest highest proportion of naysayers, directly after Italy’s 25 percent. The poll has a margin of error of up to 3 percent. (…)

The statement that “Jews always pursue their own interests and not the interest of the country they live in” received the highest levels of agreement in Portugal and Spain, with 36 and 31 percent of 1,501 and 1,499 respondents in those two countries, respectively. Next were Italy, Belgium and Norway, with 31, 28 and 25 percent, respectively.

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Belgium: Brussels chief rabbi declines to wear kippa publicly, citing security concerns

Via The Times of Israel:

Amid reports of widespread fear among Belgian Jews of being attacked by anti-Semites, the chief rabbi of Brussels and other Jews declined over security concerns a public broadcaster’s request to film them walking on the street while wearing a kippa. The RTBF broadcaster reported Thursday it wanted to film Chief Rabbi Albert Guigui, among other rabbis, wearing a kippa for a program about anti-Semitism.

But Guigui declined, telling the channel he has stopped visibly wearing a kippa in 2001 following an anti-Semitic assault on his person. In December of that year, Guigui was attacked by a group of Arabic speaking youths.

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Read also:
Brussels and Barcelona chief rabbis say there is no future for Jews in Europe

France: 53% believe Zionism = Jewish Conspiracy

Via Europe 1/JDD (in French):

A poll commissioned by the UEJF (Union of French Jewish Students) on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the creation of Israel has revealed that 53% of the French believe that Zionism is the product of a Jewish conspiracy.

For them "Zionism is an international organization that aims to influence the world and society in favour of the Jews". 50% believe that Zionism is a racist ideology. And an amazing 69% that Zionism is an ideology used to justify Israel’s policy of occupation and colonization of Palestinian territories

 

Europe: Treatment of Jews is a “seismograph” for society says EU coordinator on combatting anti-Semitism

Via Politico:

Katharina von Schnurbein is firmly in the political spotlight. As the European Commission’s coordinator on combatting anti-Semitism, von Schnurbein finds herself in the middle of questionable, difficult and downright nasty behavior.

Multiple reports show that anti-Semitism is rising across Europe, and at times the rhetoric comes from leading politicians.

For every show of inclusion from Europeans — such as last week’s victory by Netta, Israel’s entry in the Eurovision Song Contest — discussion about anti-Semitism becomes complicated by political controversy, such as Israeli Defense Forces killing more than 50 people in Gaza during protests against the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem.

Von Schnurbein feels the debate should look at not just extreme behavior but all of society. “To some extent the floodgates are open and anti-Semitism is expressed more openly [today]. Conspiracy theories are found in the middle of society. Teachers who have lost a compass as to what is anti-Semitism and therefore do not react properly in school when Jewish students are being harassed. Judges who think that throwing Molotov cocktails into a synagogue is a legitimate expression of a political opinion.”

Citing growing harassment of staff at the Auschwitz concentration camp museum, von Schnurbein said “it is not for nothing that in most EU countries it is necessary to have security in front of Jewish institutions”

What can people do in their everyday lives to combat anti-Semitism? “Fighting anti-Semitism in the end is a question of civic courage. It’s not easy to fight it in your own environment but this is where it starts. In your own party, with your own parents, your own sports club, to react when you hear something at a dinner party. It’s that kind of civic courage that we need and that will in the end change the situation.”

Von Schnurbein said treatment of Jews is a “seismograph” for society, citing the number of terror attacks against Jewish targets in Europe that included attacks in Paris, Brussels and Nice. Rising anti-Semitism “is a sign that something’s going wrong in society and therefore it needs to be tackled also by society at large.”

There is also “imported anti-Semitism,” often from migrants from Muslim-majority countries. Von Schnurbein said it’s important not to stigmatize a whole community but to recognize there is a problem. Criticism of Israeli policies is not anti-Semitic, she said, but questioning the right of Israel to exist and the right of Jewish people to self-determination is.

The ultimate aim of her work: “Normality for Jews in Europe” so they do not have to second-guess their movements and life choices in order to enjoy their basic freedoms and rights.

Bulgaria: Anti-Semitic symbols at Bulgaria football match

Via European Jewish Press:

The World Jewish Congress has strongly condemned the “disturbing and provocative” photographs that emerged in Bulgaria showing two boys at the Bulgarian Cup football finals with neo-Nazi symbols scrawled across their chests.

The incident has caused an outcry after pictures circulated online of the two boys, who appeared to be under 10, making the Nazi salute, at the Bulgarian Cup final between Levski Sofia and Slavia PFC in Sofia last Wednesday night.

The Organization of the Jews in Bulgaria “Shalom” strongly condemned the incident. It has referred the matter to the National Co-ordinator against Anti-Semitism, Deputy Minister Georg Georgiev.

“It is unacceptable that young children should be encouraged to exhibit such behaviour,” Shalom said.

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Holland: Amsterdam kosher eatery’s owner will close shop unless police curb vandalism

Via JTA:

The owner of a frequently vandalized kosher eatery in the Dutch capital said he will close it down unless city officials install permanent security measures outside his business. 

Sami Bar-On’s lawyer, Herman Loonstein, told the Het Parool daily Wednesday that his client feels it is “irresponsible to go on like this” at HaCarmel restaurant without permanent security measures. 

In December, a 29-year-old Syrian asylum seeker smashed the restaurant’s window while holding a Palestinian flag. He then broke into the restaurant and grabbed an Israeli flag as two police officers watched before they arrested him. He has been charged with vandalism, but not a hate crime. 

Since the incident, the restaurant’s windows were smashed once more and are repeatedly spat on and smeared with garbage, Bar-On said. Police beef up security after each incident but leave shortly after, he said.

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France: Anti-semitic placard at anti-Macron protest

Thousands of people demonstrated in central Paris on Saturday amid a heavy police presence to protest against President Emmanuel Macron's sweeping reforms, a year after he came to office. (The Local)

An old man was seen carrying a placard with the inscription "Mac Aaron, Zionist, Crook".

Photos via Laurent Bouvet

And this too.  Look at the nose, the ears, the money, the crown, the gallows.

France: Can a Jew love France?

Via The New York Times (Alexander Aciman):

[...] But things are not so dreamy for Jews today in France. The country is struggling to maintain and protect its large Jewish population, the third largest in the world, which has been dwindling precipitously thanks to the wave of anti-Semitism that has gripped the country over the past decade. In 2015 — the year of the Charlie Hebdo attack — 8,000 Jews left France and headed for Israel.

My grandfather made a go at living in Paris in the 1960s, but found himself an outsider in a country still reeling from a war of roundups and deportations. This broke his heart, for he too felt that Paris was his real home.

France failed to make good for my grandfather on the promissory cultural note of the Alliance Israélite Universelle. The organization’s purpose was to lift Jews out of their benighted surroundings and offer them the tools to make a go at life in Europe. It was the promise of a country that took pride in being more civilized than the ones that would eventually expel all of their Jewish populations.

Today such distinction feels more blurred and more difficult to defend than at any point since World War II.

What hurts most about this realization is that it directly contradicts what Jews like me feel must also necessarily be true: France is our home, as if somewhere in the universe there is a real France, and the one in Europe is just a facsimile that keeps falling off the anti-Semitism wagon.

French-speaking Jews may have celebrated this year when Emmanuel Macron’s party, La République En Marche!, defeated the frighteningly far-right and anti-Semitic National Front, but this supposedly new France has done nothing to curb its Jewish problem. Every year in France Jewish storefronts are vandalized, including arson in kosher supermarkets this past week.

The general feeling of unrest is not unlike the one felt over 100 years ago during the Dreyfus Affair, when it became clear to many that Jewish life in France was ultimately unsustainable. For many, the situation has started feeling untenable again today. Anti-Semitism, as it turns out, is a flat circle. And yet, despite all the betrayal and heartbreak, I cannot bring myself to renounce France, as if after more than a century of love for this country, the love itself has become part of my genome. Generations removed from the work of the Alliance, its effects continue to exist in me.

I feel as ridiculous admitting that I am not French as I do saying that I am. I know all the transfer points of the Paris Metro. Like my father, I studied French literature at university. My favorite days in New York are those when it rains, because on those days the city reminds me of Paris.

I cannot resolve the idea that the place where I feel that I belong wants nothing to do with me. I struggle to accept the terrible truth, which is that many of my fellow Jews in France are feeling today those early warning tremors of disaster felt by French Jews in the early 1900s and the 1930s. I tell myself that in 30 years I’ll be back home, and my kids will be sitting and chatting under the heat lamps at cafes and picking up terrible premature smoking habits, when really I know that in that time there will probably no longer be any Jews left in France at all. But like any good French person, I just shrug one of those inscrutable shrugs and say something like “C’est de la politique.” Politics, right? Suspended in a strange gray space of muddled allegiances, like my grandfather, I realize that though I may feel French and though I want my children to grow up speaking French, the France my family dreamed of no longer exists — and maybe never did.

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Germany: Gov't company fires employee for 'antisemitic' social media posts

Via Jerusalem Post:

The German Corporation for International Cooperation said on Friday that it had fired one employee and disciplined two additional workers in response to scores of allegations of antisemitic Facebook posts by the company's staff, including at their location in Jordan, which were first revealed by The Jerusalem Post.

"Meetings were held with the eight employees whose posts had been criticized to clarify each specific case, and the outcome was carefully considered on an individual basis. As a result, there has been a dismissal, a written warning and a reprimand," said the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ) in a statement.

(...)

The GIZ headquarters is located in the West German city of Bonn and it describes itself as a "federal enterprise with worldwide operations. We support the German Government in the fields of international cooperation for sustainable development and international education. Through our work, we assist people and societies in shaping their own future and improving living conditions."

Mohammed al-Mutawakel, who is currently a project manager at GIZ's headquarters in Bonn and was previously a project manager in Jordan, compared Israel to the Nazi movement. He posted an Israeli flag on Facebook and replaced the Star of David with a swastika. “I hate Israel,” he wrote. GIZ declined to disclose to the Post if al-Mutawakel had been fired and would not provide the name of the other disciplined employees.

Ulrich Nitschke, a senior GIZ employee in the Middle East, praised, according to the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor, the nomination of the BDS movement for the Nobel Peace Prize. The BDS movement advocates boycotting, divesting from, and sanctioning Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians.

Tobias Thiel, who heads GIZ's Strengthening Reform Initiatives project, said Israel does not have the right to defend itself and shared articles that Israel committed a “deliberate massacre” in the Gaza Strip.

Prior to the GIZ decision to discipline employees, the whistle-blower, who wished to remain anonymous, said GIZ's workplace culture is saturated with antisemitism. The source told the Post that Rudolf Rogg, who oversees the corporation's Middle East department, has “three Facebook accounts with anti-Israeli agitation.”

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Sweden: Son of Holocaust survivor explains why he left Sweden to Israel

Via The Times of Israel (Stefan Shaul Lindmark):

Madam Foreign Minister! I’m here now. You know, in Israel. Just like I said I would be. I wrote to you two years ago, you may remember. And I told you about the people who built the state of Israel; the survivors of the Holocaust, the Jews expelled from the Arab world and Iran, and who were robbed of all of their possessions, the Ethiopian Jews who walked through the deserts of death, the Soviet Jews who fled from the anti-Semitism and all the other Jews who have moved here to live together with the Jews who have lived here for generations.

Madam Foreign Minister, now I am one of them – I, the son of a survivor from the Holocaust. I, who have lived all my life in Sweden and have served the country as a soldier, as an ambulance nurse, as a therapist and above all as, a lecturer of the Holocaust and its consequences. I have left a Sweden that is no longer the country I have known my whole life. Sweden, a country that has changed further over the years since I wrote to you – and the change is not for the better.

Madam Foreign Minister, I’m leaving Sweden where violence, gangs fight for territory, power and “respect”, shootings, rape and especially gang rapes have become the norm – my Sweden which is now a country where anti-Semitism is dramatically increasing even further, a country whose government suffers from at severe case of megalomania and believes itself to be morally superior to any other country in the entire world. (...)  

Madam Foreign Minister, since I last wrote to you Sweden has adapted to hearing people screaming in the streets that “Jews are the offspring of monkeys and pigs” and “shoot the Jews”. Without ramification. Petrol bombs have been thrown against my synagogue and against the chapel in Malmö. The Jewish community center pays 53% of its budget, based on their members’ fees, on its own security. But you don’t want to see this, you did not want to hear the warning signs, you who habitually will blame Israel like you always do – my Israel – to be the cause of all evil in the world. And then you wonder why the Swedish Jews leave. In the Jewish Chronicle you claim not to understand why Jews want to leave to Sweden in order to move to a life “behind walls”.  

But Mrs Foreign Minister, if the interview was made on the Jewish community’s premises, you had to cross the high fences, the walls and security controls in order to enter. The fences and walls that make the Jews safe in Sweden. There are plenty of people in Sweden who want to kill us. So what is the fundamental difference between the fences and walls of Jewish institutions in Sweden and fences and walls against those who want to kill and hurt people in Israel? Who can we trust? Not those who are aiding and abetting. Not those who make hollow promises. Not those who lay the blame on the victims and coddle and defend the perpetrators. The history of experience has taught us that we can only trust ourselves against those who want to kill us.

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European Parliament admits Jewish population is diminishing in the European Union

In an non-official document "prepared for, and addressed to, the Members and staff of the European Parliament as background material to assist them in their parliamentary work" acknowledges that the Jewish population in the European Union is declining.  In 2915 it stood at a little above 1 million.  It is clear from the document that there is nothing it can do to reverse the situation.

Jewish communities in the European Union

The Jewish population in the EU has been declining. It dropped from around 1.12 million in 2009 to 1.08 million in 2015, though it is difficult to give precise numbers as some countries do not collect ethnic data. The Jewish population in France, the largest in the EU, declined from about 500,000 in 2002 to 460,000 in 2015. Emigration, mainly to Israel, is the main factor behind the trend, which has intensified in recent years, among other things due to harassment, discrimination and hate crimes against Jews.  

Diminishing Jewish population  

Centuries ago, Jews were persecuted as a religious minority, while in the last century the belief that Jews were a threat to the state was a driving force behind the Holocaust. Today Jews are targeted mainly because of events in the Middle East, although some anti-Semitic sentiments also revolve around the Holocaust. According to a 2015 report by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), the main perpetrators of anti-Semitic incidents are neo-Nazis, far-right or far-left sympathisers, Muslim fundamentalists and the younger generation. The report states that anti-Semitic behaviour is mainly characterised by denial and trivialisation of the Holocaust, glorification of the Nazi past, anti-Semitic sentiment due to property-restitution laws and hatred because of Israeli policies. It includes verbal and physical violence; threats; insults of Jews going to synagogues; harassment of rabbis; repeated attacks on Jews wearing symbols of their religion; hate speech; anti-Semitic bullying in schools; and damage to property, including arson.

Growing violence against Jews Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, encouraged French Jews to come to Israel after the killings of kosher supermarket customers in Paris in January 2015, four years after a deadly attack on a Jewish school in Toulouse. Many Jews have considered following his advice, although some eventually return. According to a 2013 survey on anti-Semitism in eight EU Member States, 21% of respondents experienced verbal or physical violence or harassment because they were Jews. The numbers may underestimate the reality, since 76% of victims of anti-Semitic hate crime do not report it. 

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On the same subject:
Joël Rubinfeld, president of the Belgian League against Anti-Semitism, warned: Europe: Ours will be the last significant generation of European Jews

Europe: Ours will be the last significant generation of European Jews

Joël Rubinfeld, president of the Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism, attended the 6th Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism in Jerusalem. Upon his return, Mr. Rubinfeld was interviewed by Radio Judaica in Brussels about the future of Jewish communities in Belgium and in Europe. He declared:

"The few days I spent in Israel have not made me change my optimism or my pessimism about the situation and the way I view it.  I am a pessimist who fights.  I fear - and I sincerely hope that I am mistaken - that our generation will represent, in history books, the last significant generation of European Jews.

In 30 years, in 40 years, in 50 years, there will still be, of course, Jews in Europe but far fewer than today."

read more @ Philosémitisme blog (in French)

On the same topic:
Leading European Rabbi: ‘I have never heard so many concerned voices from my fellow Rabbis at the situation affecting Jewry in Europe’

Europe added to mankind's lexicon "Pogrom," "Ghetto," and "Holocaust"

Daniel Schwammenthal is based in Brussels and is the Director of the AJC Transatlantic Institute.  He reacted to Gallup's findings that Americans staunchly support Israel, but not Europeans:

"Maybe one day, the Continent that added to mankind's lexicon such words and concepts as "Pogrom," "Ghetto," and "Holocaust" will see this kind of support for the Jewish state..."

Turkey: Uber a Jewish conspiracy - Istanbul taxi drivers’ head

Via Ahval News:

The president of the Chamber of Istanbul Taxi Businesses has accused Uber of being a targeted attack on his industry carried out by what he called “the Jewish lobby”, Turkish Jewish newspaper Şalom said .

“The global thieving Jewish lobby is carrying out commercial taxi piracy in Turkey,” Eyüp Aksu told a crowd of anti-Uber protesters outside an Istanbul courthouse.

He said the Turkish media were joining in, attacking taxi drivers with biased articles.

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France: Islamic anti-Semitism towards ethnic cleansing

Via Gatestone Institute (Guy Millière):

(...) The French Jewish community may still be the largest in Europe, but it is shrinking rapidly. In 2000, it was estimated at 500,000, but the number now is less than 400,000, and sinking. Jewish districts that once were thriving are now on the verge of extinction. "What is happening is an ethnic cleansing that dare not speak its name. In few decades, there will be no Jews in France," according to Richard Abitbol, ​​president of the Confederation of French Jews and Friends of Israel.

Without the Jews of France, France would no longer be France, said Former Prime Minister Manuel Valls in 2016 . But he did not do anything.

Recently he said that he had done his best, that he could not have done more. "The problem," he said, "is that anti-Semitism today in France comes less from the far right than from individuals of the Muslim faith or culture".

He added that in France, for at least two decades, all attacks against Jews in which the perpetrator has been identified have come from Muslims, and that the most recent attacks were no exception.

Valls, however, quickly suffered the consequences of his candor. He was elbowed to the margins of political life. Muslim websites called him an " agent of the Jewish lobby" and a "racist." Former leaders of his own party, such as former Foreign Minister Roland Dumas, said that Valls' wife is a Jew and hinted that he was "under the influence".

In France, telling the truth about Islamic anti-Semitism is dangerous. For a politician, it is suicidal.  (...)

In French Muslim neighborhoods, Islamist imams denounce the "bad influence" of Jews and spread anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. French politicians stay silent.

Islamic bookstores in France sell books banned elsewhere, such as the fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and CDs and DVDs of violent anti-Semitic speeches by radical preachers. For instance, Yussuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, who is prohibited from entering France and the US, says he regrets that Hitler did not "finish the job". French politicians stay silent.

Although synagogues in France have not been attacked since 2014, they all are guarded around the clock by armed soldiers in bulletproof vests who are protected behind sandbags, as are Jewish schools and cultural centers. (...)

A growing percentage of the French say that the Jews in France are "too numerous" and "too visible."

Reports for the Ministry of National Education reveal that expressions such as "Don't act like a Jew", intended to criticize a student who hides what he thinks, are widely used in public schools. Jewish students are more and more often the object of mockery -- and not just by students who are Muslim.

A few days ago, the comedian Laura Laune was the winner on the reality television series "France's Got Talent". Some of her jokes make fun of the fact that there were fewer Jews in the world in 1945 than in 1939. Jewish organizations protested, but in vain. Now, she appears to packed halls. The anti-Semitic comedian Dieudonné also fills the stadiums where he performs.

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Slovakia: Synagogue turned into trendy café

On the same topic:
Swimming Pool, Furniture Shop and Police Station: The Sorry Fate of Europe's Old Synagogues

Via YNet:

Eighty-two percent of the Jews residing in Trnava, Slovakia, were murdered in the Holocaust, destroyed along with an ancient Jewish heritage dating back to the 12th century. The city's synagogues were similarly demolished—or were converted for other uses. Israeli traveler Meir Davidson found one such synagogue, converted to a café.

During his travels in Trnava—nicknamed "Slovakia's Rome" due to its proliferation of churches—Davidson found a crowded coffee shop attempting to blend into the architectural space which it occupied without totally eradicating it.

"The main street had a model of the city containing two synagogues near the local basilica," Davidson told Ynet. "We looked for them and were shocked to find an active café, filled with local yuppies."

The coffee shop's management, he added, made no effort to disguise the structure's previous designation as a house of worship and even stated it explicitly—as the café was named Synagóga Café and the "synagogue's history was printed on the menu." 

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